Wednesday, 31 December 2025

TV

The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2025
[Watch it (again) on Channel 4.]

Friends
10x17 The Last One Part 1 [6th or so watch]
10x18 The Last One Part 2 [series finale; 6th or so watch]
It's normal to end the year with Friends, right?

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
33x03 Does the 80s

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
4x02 Week 1: Day 2
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Ronan Keating and Friends: A New Year’s Eve Party
Part 1 (of 2)
Well, what else am I meant to bung on while waiting for the fireworks?
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Tabletop Games

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Game 6 (of 7)

Tuesday, 30 December 2025

Monday, 29 December 2025

TV

The War Between the Land and the Sea
Part 2 Plastic Apocalypse
Part 3 The Deep
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Watson
1x13 My Life's Work Part 2 [season finale]

Would I Lie To You?
19x00 At Christmas
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Only programmes beginning with W today, for some reason.

Comics

2000 AD
Prog 2463

And that's 2025's 2000 AD complete — which means I'm finally all caught up! ("Finally" because I've been working on this goal since September.)

I hadn't really processed it, because at the time I was just doing what I could to catch up, but reading the 'recap of the year' feature they run nowadays brought home to me that I've raced through an entire year's worth of 2000 AD in about 2½ months (and over a year's worth in about 3 months of dedicated effort). When I started this push, it was no more than a semi-desperate attempt to catch-up, reduce my backlog, not feel like I wasted my money... but, in some respects, it's been quite a nice way to read it. It certainly condenses storylines, which sometimes makes it easier to remember what's going on in them, especially with long-runners. So, even though I've now caught up, I wonder if I should deliberately get behind again — save up all 2026's Progs until September/October time and do another massive catch-up? Hmm, I'm not sure doing it deliberately is such a good idea... though, knowing me, once I get out of the habit of regular reading (which I will, whether I like it or not, now that I don't have a literal pile of Progs to work through), I might end up doing it accidentally.

What I should do is apply this method to the massive stack of unread US comics I've accumulated over the past three years... or even just catch up on X-Men (unread since May!) or Absolute Batman (unread since July!)

Tabletop Games

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Game 4 (of 7)

Saturday, 27 December 2025

TV

Not Going Out
14x02 Doll
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

QI
23x09 Winter Wonderland (XL version) [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x74 Redemption Week 1: Thursday
8x75 Redemption Week 1: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The War Between the Land and the Sea
Part 1 Homo Aqua
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Watson
1x11 The Dark Day Deduction

Tabletop Games

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Game 1 (of 7)

So, turns out I misunderstood that expansion and, rather than adding to the entire game, it's extra rounds to be played after Game 6. Oh well, we'd been wanting to go through it all again anyway.

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Just a couple of additions from my Christmas Day haul this week, although a few more titles should turn up before the end-of-year tally next week.

Number of titles in collection: 3,651 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 978 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,673 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 493 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 8,771 [up 2]
Number of films: 4,683 [up 1]
Number of additional cuts: 478 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,188 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,280 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Friday, 26 December 2025

TV

Live at the Apollo
20x01 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
33x08 Christmas Special

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x71 Redemption Week 1: Monday
8x72 Redemption Week 1: Tuesday
8x73 Redemption Week 1: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Sea Devils
The latest in an occasional series of feature-length re-edits of classic Doctor Who stories, this one as a tie-in / sorta-prequel to miniseries The War Between the Land and the Sea. I'm not a huge fan of the original serial (which I watched recently — just 3½ years ago), so cutting out 40% makes it somewhat more entertaining — certainly, I didn't feel anything significant was missing, but you can tell it's been sped up in places. As someone who's absolutely fine with watching classic Who at full length, I don't need these re-edits; but if they help introduce new viewers to older episodes of the show, that's a net good.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Wheel
6x10 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures
1.3 Lionesses in Winter

Although released in November, this is a de facto Christmas special, what with it... being set at Christmas. I mean, that's plenty enough to qualify, really, but it also feels thematically pretty Christmassy, so it really nails the objective. And without one on TV this year, it's especially welcome.

Tabletop Games

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Trick-Taking Game

Thursday, 25 December 2025

TV

Blankety Blank
5x01 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x70 Week 14: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Tabletop Games

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Game 7 (of 7)

One final round of the vanilla final game, before we break out that expansion I mentioned.

Wednesday, 24 December 2025

TV

Friends
10x16 The One with Rachel's Going Away Party [6th or so watch]

Not Going Out
14x01 House Move
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Poker Face
2x01 The Game Is a Foot
I'd kind of forgotten how good this show could be it (it is over two years since I finished season one, after all). It's feels a step above other 'murder mystery' shows, quality-wise.

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x68 Week 14: Wednesday
8x69 Week 14: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Watson
1x10 The Man with the Alien Hand

Video Games

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition

Only really booted it up today because there were reports saying it was now Unsupported on Steam Deck. Ran fine for me. Decided to also play around with the graphics too, basically bumping them up... and it still ran fine. So that was nice.

Still spent half-an-hour in it just testing that.